STOP FEEDING HORSES THAT ARE NOT YOURS

[Pineapplechickenpizza]

Unbelievable that this is still a problem after all the hype on social media and the news but unfortunately it is.

Why do people think it’s acceptable to feed an animal that isn’t there’s? I don’t care if it’s an apple or carrot or just a few blades of grass. They’re not your horses- DONT FEED THEM ANYTHING.

If you feed horses in fields that are not yours, honestly, why do you do it?? Do you realise how your ignorance could make someones horse unwell?

Dreading summer holidays when more people are out for walks and think it’s acceptable to feed the horses in the fields

Those talking about horse owners going on about the money side of things…

Owning a horse is a big commitment in many ways, not least financially. Any horse (or indeed any other pet) owner needs to be able to look after their horse whatever the financial cost. Expensive, unanticipated vet bills caused by people feeding them unasked can put this at risk. Damn right I’d be thinking about the money - it is the difference between being able to properly look after a sentient being that relies on their owner, and not

I do pull people up on fb when they post photos of their kids feeding the horses

Most of them thank me as they are unaware of the problems.

Some tell me to mind my own business and unfriend me.

But I don’t care.

The underlying message of this thread (don’t feed horses, it might make them sick) is perfectly reasonable and fair enough. The shouting, sneering way it’s being delivered though, is not.

‘OI, PEASANTS & PLEBS! Don’t you dare to come near my very expensive property to feed it - in fact, don’t even deign to look at it. It’s not for your commoner’s eyes’.

And to the person who said they hoped their horse bites someone’s fingers off; I hope your horse kicks you in the head. It might knock a bit of humility in.

@IncompleteSenten

It must be beyond frustrating to be breaking down exactly why strangers should not feed your horses and have people get snotty about it and argue with you that they should be allowed to do something that may injure or kill your horse.

Indeed. Some responses are bonkers. OP's wealth or lack of it has nothing to do with anything.

Some people will always react defensively to being told they shouldn’t do something they want to do, because it’s an uncomfortable feeling being “in the wrong”. So they’ll find fault with the tone or the wording, they’ll find ways to justify why it’s not their fault (“there were no signs!” “the fences should be bigger!” “your horse, your problem” etc etc) to avoid examining their own behaviour.

Some other people just don’t think of horses as having owners, I think. In fact I think it often goes beyond that, they don’t think of horses as individual animals. They’re Everyhorse, they all eat grass and apples and carrots. They’re just part of the backdrop that makes the countryside look pretty and they don’t exist beyond the moment that person observes them in the field.

For the record, I don’t own horses but I do know not to feed them. I also know that lots of horses are kept at livery yards where the owner has no or little control over the fencing or the signage. I know that housing estates have encroached on green belts so that fields and yards that were once fairly remote are now on popular walking routes.

It’s not hard not to feed someone else’s animals. It’s a nice feeling to come back from a walk knowing that you haven’t potentially killed a horse by your well-intentioned but dangerous actions.

Maybe the easy to remember SM slogan people seem to need should be “don’t be a dick, feeding horses makes them sick” 😉

Unfortunately people are just clueless. We live close to a herd of Alpacas and the owners had to move them away from the lane they were living on due to people feeding them. We live pretty rurally so you would think “country” people would know better. We also went to the zoo a few months ago and someone’s brat was picking bits of foliage off the bushes behind him and feeding the giraffes 🤷‍♀️. The zoo keeper came out and asked him nicely not to do it. He carried on so they came out and told him in not so many words that if he carried on he would thrown out of the zoo. Seriously though do people really need to be told not to do it?

I agree that in the past feeding polos and apples etc was seen as a nice thing to do but we should know better in this day and age. If they can’t read signs though there is no hope…

🥲OI, PEASANTS & PLEBS! Don’t you dare to come near my very expensive property to feed it - in fact, don’t even deign to look at it. It’s not for your commoner’s eyes

No one is saying that at all, that’s your own insecurity/prejudice/chip on your shoulder causing projecting of something that just isn’t there.

And to the person who said they hoped their horse bites someone’s fingers off; I hope your horse kicks you in the head. It might knock a bit of humility in

Oh the irony 😃

@Giraffesandbottoms

Well it isn’t, because I’m not the only one who has picked up on this kind of superior, contemptuous tone.

It’s really not difficult to understand that the vast majority of people who do this, will not have malicious intentions, they are just unaware. It isn’t obvious - horses eat grass so it would seem to logically follow that giving them grass is natural and not harmful to them.

The simplest solution would be to put signs up on the enclosures to educate people. There will always be a small minority of people who ignore them, but unfortunately those people tend to ignore everything and there’s not a great deal you can do about them.

It has been explained repeatedly that the mention of money is to do with the context of “if my horse gets unwell and I have to call the vet it costs a lot of money”. Horses are huge. Taking care of them is very expensive: it’s relevant because, as I said; people
Make huge sacrifices to afford to do
This and it’s pretty unfair to have to spend thousands of pounds on the vet and treatment/not be able to
Ride because people
Think they have the right to feed your pet. It’s nothing to do with “I’m a rich land baron” or whatever bizarre takeaway you and one other person hve had.

People have put up signs. And fences. And other stuff - it’s ignored. And the people ignoring it are who the frustrated posts are aimed at. There are also people on this thread like @RowanAlong who have been very reasonable and said “ah I didn’t know this and won’t do it again”. Totally fine and reasonable: but there are several
People on here actually querying what we, the owners and people who know about horses,
Are saying. It’s absolutely mental.

@GlendaSugarbeanIsJudgingYou I don't feed horses. I think the whole concept of 'owning' animals is weird though. The reality is that unless there's signage covering several angles on the fencing most people have no idea. Why would they? I doubt many have deviant intentions to make it ill or the like. There's a horse near here that has a tiny square of land and it's public footpath all around it, sounds like a really exciting existence for it.

@Widmerpool

This thread has confirmed my belief that people who have horses are entitled wankers.

I say this as someone who would never feed a horse in a field.

Presumably you don't want people watering/weeding the flowers etc in your garden if you have one. If you objected would that make you an entitled wanker because people with no garden might get a lot of pleasure from your garden. Whatisthe harm if your drought loving plantsget watered 4 or 5 times s day by different people or those seedlings upu have carefully raised get mistaken for weeds. Silly you for having a garden next to the pavement, what do you expect?

@Pineapplechickenpizza

Quick fact for anyone who wasn’t aware.

Horses can’t actually vomit. They can’t get anything dangerous, toxic or inedible out of their digestive system in the immediate way by being sick that most other animals can.

I didn't actually know that.

I wouldn't give a horse anything to eat but if it was looking over a fence or wall as I was walking past I would speak to it and if it was tame enough, and I was brave enough, I might pat it. That's it. Then I would carry on with my walk/day.

I’m surprised by the attitudes here

Horse owners are telling us we can’t look and coo at their horses.

They are telling us not to feed them.

Some are saying we shouldn’t pet them either because they aren’t always friendly.

Signs get ignored
Fences get ignored. The public will actually climb over the fence to get at what they think they are entitled to

When horses get sick, they can get very ill very quickly and it costs the owner thousands to help. Unfortunately, horses are fragile and many will die even with vet help.

Please do not feed animals you do not own.

Feeding birds and ducks in the river are different.

I didn't realise how badly designed horses are. I've absolutely no desire to go anywhere near one now so job done!

Well, if you can’t put in place adequate measures to keep your animal(s) safe from environmental hazards (idiots that ignore signs, for example), then perhaps you can’t really afford them after all?

Electric fencing? An enclosure away from footpaths and public rights of way? Remedial veterinary treatment? Too expensive? Then you can’t afford the horse, in reality.

We own a horse and people on this thread who say feeding horses is just something nice and innocent for kids to do - I hope you have the same attitude to strangers feeding your own kids random crap. I'm not rich and make a lot of sacrifices to keep our pony, so an unexpected vet bill due to other people's selfishness would be pretty damn bad.

@Salome61

Not everyone is good to their horses, and it is often difficult to find out who owns them.

There were three horses in the field near us, no shelter, snow, and no hay. They were just in a field and had to go down a steep slope to a fast running stream to drink.

I knew not to feed them but it was obvious they were starving, they were eating the trees. I eventually tracked the owners down and offered to buy hay but too late, one of the horses died. I now wish I'd at least thrown some apples in.

Well they should have had hay at some point in those conditions but there's no harm at all in having them drink from a stream. So long as none of them were arthritic getting down a slope is fine and streams are better than buckets or troughs because there's less crowding and therefore less competition and less aggression.

Eating trees is also perfectly normal for horses. In more natural conditions around 10 percent of their calorific intake comes from browsing rather than grazing. Modern grasses have been developed to fatten cattle and sheep. They're actually bad for horses. We do the equivalent of feeding them chips all day if all we do is give them grass to eat. Ideally they should have access to other forage, in particular trees and shrubs.

In this case it seems there were issues. But then again, a friend of mine has just had a very thin horse put to sleep. He wasn't starved or ill treated. He was 34 and had an incredible life. He'd been very well cared for but his time had come.

It does sound like this case was different, but people do very often misinterpret things.

@MadameHeisenberg

Well, if you can’t put in place adequate measures to keep your animal(s) safe from environmental hazards (idiots that ignore signs, for example), then perhaps you can’t really afford them after all?

Electric fencing? An enclosure away from footpaths and public rights of way? Remedial veterinary treatment? Too expensive? Then you can’t afford the horse, in reality.

But they do!

People climb over gates, fences, unplug electric fences. Ignore signs and will do anything they want because they feel they are entitled to give the horse some grass.

“It’s only grass”
“It’s only one apple”
“It’s only xxx”

Yes. To you. But to the horse that might have been it’s 10th apple that day

@MadameHeisenberg 🙄 Do you think most people own the fields where the horses are kept and are free to do what they want to them?! My horse (like most others) is kept on a livery yard that I don't own and so I can't just be putting up random fences on. Even if medical care was free, are you happy for a stranger to feed your kid something that puts them in hospital?

Thank you for making this thread OP.

We lost 2 horses in lockdown from people feeding them. Absolutely devastating. I don't think people realise what it's like. To spend all your time, money, energy, love on a creature. To spend every waking hour on their care and to then watch them die an agonising death because someone's entitlement knows no end. Absolutely heart wrenching.

We have three fences, 2 electrified. Signs up and down the whole perimeter explaining not to feed the horses, still I have to ask people not to feed them. It's really upsetting.

The entitlement just absolutely astounds me, I would never go into someone's back garden and feed their dog or into a playground and feed their child. HORSES ARE NOT ENTERTAINMENT FOR YOUR CHILD.

And for everyone saying horse owners should be nicer about it. You try losing friends you care about and losing thousands of thousands of pounds trying to save them. It's utterly soul destroying.

Im a country girl and now live in a city and its crazy, the ignorance !
We saw this is lockdown- leaving gates open, wandering into a bulls fields , dogs off leads at lambing times.
I just think at this time its willful ignorance

@SoftSheen wtf.

@MadameHeisenberg

The underlying message of this thread (don’t feed horses, it might make them sick) is perfectly reasonable and fair enough. The shouting, sneering way it’s being delivered though, is not.

‘OI, PEASANTS & PLEBS! Don’t you dare to come near my very expensive property to feed it - in fact, don’t even deign to look at it. It’s not for your commoner’s eyes’.

And to the person who said they hoped their horse bites someone’s fingers off; I hope your horse kicks you in the head. It might knock a bit of humility in.

Where has ANYONE said don't look at my horse? It's been said multiple times you are welcome to look, just don't feed them. Just like I'd pass someone's garden and enjoy their planting, but wouldn't wander in and pick their flowers or sit on their furniture. This thread is actually unreal with the victim blaming and nasty assumptions about class and financial situations. Sorry, I'll pretend my horse was free and you can feed it all the shite you want while I humbly look on from my gold throne and deal with the agonising illnessses and vets bills. I don't get how else you explain to people without seeming "sneering". Horses are expensive. They cost a lot to buy, feed, look after. Some people work two jobs, some people spend all their disposable income, some people don't own fancy cars or houses or have holidays to afford them. In the list of reasons why your horses shouldn't be treated like the local petting zoo, of course expenditure comes into it as one of the factors. That doesn't make anyone sneering or elite. I'm out of this thread. It seems despite multiple explanations there is a determination with a few to paint horse owners as some kind of Cyril Sneer/Cruella De Ville character because we don't want our horses to die in agony or to run the local entertainment attraction. Not knowing about horses is fine, of course it is. Sadly people DO willfully ignore signs and fencing, just like people chuck litter out car windows; they want to do something and won't hear otherwise because they don't have to deal with the consequences. Anyway, I'm out. Off to count my gold in my vault and throw insults at passing commoners. Or muck our six stables and poop scoop a field.

Also horse unlike dogs cannot throw up, so they can get extremely sick very quickly if fed something they shouldn't be eating.

@suckingonchillidogs

I didn't realise how badly designed horses are. I've absolutely no desire to go anywhere near one now so job done!

If you’ve ever seen a horse unwell with laminitis or colic then you would completely understand the why some horse owners would be so desperate to stop feeding

For anyone in any doubt about this, I had an elderly, retired horse. I'd owned him since he was middle-aged. He'd been retired for years and I was at the point where I was continually monitoring his health because I knew we were getting to the stage where he'd need to be put to sleep. I had various lines I wouldn't cross. Number one was laminitis. First sign of that I wasn't going to fight it, he'd be gone. Second was colic. A mild case, sure, give him time to get through it, a few hours. Anything else, anything longer, no, he'd be going.

In the end he did develop something around the metabolic syndrome/ Cushings/ laminitis spectrum. And that was it. Didn't wait for tests to confirm. He was in pain, I knew what was likely coming and I was not putting him through it.

It's not just that it's a death sentence. Horses have evolved to hide pain. So when you see them in that much pain that they clearly want to die, it breaks a part of you.

And it's not just the owners' responsibility to keep people away. I don't expect you not to feed children without asking. I don't expect you not to key my car because I park it in public. Just don't feed other people's animals, whether they're in a public space or whether they're in Fort Knox. Just don't do it.